Aunt Hannah’s Knit Stockings

I love surprises, especially when they concern a vintage item I’ve bought.  An example is this pair of vintage cotton hand knit stockings.  They came from the same estate as the gym shirt I wrote about last week. and they appear to have never been worn.

I was examining these, getting ready to research the style and such when I felt something crunch inside one of the stockings.  I gently put my hand in it and pulled out a scrap of paper.

“Aunt Hannah knit these.”  Usually when I buy a piece of vintage I have no information at all about who was the maker or the wearer.  And while the note gives only a name and relationship, it does at least somewhat humanize the stockings.  Someone cared enough about Aunt Hannah to document her work, though I’d have loved a last name and date to go along with it.

It is my guess that these were made in that short period of time, the 1910s, when skirts were slowly inching upward and women were wanting nicer stockings since they could be seen.  But since the pattern stops at mid-calf, the skirts that was to be worn with these could not have been more than five or six inches from the floor. The top of the stocking comes to just below the knee, and would have been held up with garters.

They look short, but the size of the foot indicates that they were not made for a child.  Perhaps they were made for a young woman or teen whose skirts were short, but not too short for the era.

Such skill!  Knitters always make it look so easy, but Aunt Hannah had to have had a very fine hand and very tiny needles.

Trimfit Net Stockings Inspired by Twiggy, 1967

Twiggy was the Mod “It Girl” of the mid 1960s, and as such her name and image were in great demand.   She was discovered early in 1966 after having her hair cut short. The hairdresser then had professional photos made of her showing off the new cut which were displayed in his salon.  A newspaper reporter saw the photos and then did a feature about Twiggy.  By November of that year she had her own line of clothes and was working on other products that featured her name and image.

Twiggy came to the US in 1967 where her face ended up on the covers of not only Vogue and Seventeen, but also Newsweek.  The tour generated so much publicity that she was able to sign many endorsement deals for products like Trimfit stockings, false eyelashes and toys like dolls and board games.

This photo of twiggy on the packaging clearly shows how the mid 1960s look was all about the eyes.

I was in the seventh grade in 1967, and I can remember getting a pair of fishnet stockings for Christmas that year.  I also got several pairs of pastel stockings, in pink and blue I think, which were worn under the fishnets.  It was a nice effect, and helped keep the legs warm.

Helanca and Larkwood Stockings, 1958

Since I posted those white stockings last week, I thought I might follow up with an ad showing the colors available in 1958.  Stocking makers had experimented with color in the heels, toes and seams of stockings in the early 1950s, but 1958 seems to be the year they tried to sell stockings to match one’s dress or skirt.  I’m a bit too young to remember what women were wearing in 1958, but somehow I can’t picture colored legs.  But that was the time of the horrible sack dress, so who knows?  Anybody?

Helanca was a type of nylon yarn developed by a Swiss company.  It was seen mainly in tights, leotards and sweaters.

Ad Campaign – Hanes, 1972

This is one page of a two-page ad spread from 1972.  The second page is merely the name of the product and a short slogan.  Can you guess what it is?  And yes, it is fashion related.

If no one guesses correctly today, I’ll post the second page of the ad tomorrow.  I’ll give extra credit if you know the brand.

(Don’t try that sneaky hover over the image trick, thinking I might have put the name of the product in the file name.  Another blogger recently had a guessing game and the files had revealing names, and the game was ruined when one poster used that info and pretended to know all the answers.  Not cool…)